Sciatica its Cause, and Symptoms

What is Sciatica?

Sciatica is a pain in the back of the leg that starts from the lower back and runs up to the bottom of the feet. The sciatica pain is due to compression or injury to your sciatic nerve. The sciatic nerve is the longest nerve in the human body. It starts in the lower back spine and runs down through the buttocks and along the back of each leg, all the way down to your feet.

The sciatica pain radiates along the entire path of the sciatic nerve. This pain may be accompanied by tingling or numbness in the affected area.

Most of the sciatica cases can be cured with proper medication, stretching and physiotherapy. Constitutional homeopathic medicines have a very good response in the treatment of sciatica.

Causes of Sciatica

The most common cause of sciatica is sciatic nerve compression due to a lumbar disc herniation. A disc herniation is a bulging or slipped intervertebral disc that compresses or irritates the spinal nerve root. Other reasons of sicatica nerver compression other than disc herniation can be a bone spur due to arthritis, some other inflammatory disease (e.g., ankylosing spondylitis), degenerative disc diseases like osteoarthritis, or some kind of trauma causing nerve root irritation.

Prolonged sitting and poor posture also may cause muscular imbalance and increased stress in the lower back, which can contribute to the development of sciatica.

Symptoms of Sciatica

The sciatica pain starts from your lower back and spreads into your buttocks, back of your legs, calf, and may reach up to the very bottom of your foot. The symptoms of sciatica are as follows:

• Pain from the lower back radiating through the buttocks to the back of the legs.
• The nature of pain is burning, shooting, stabbing, or electric shock-like.
• Tingling and numbness in the affected area.
• The pain worsens with bending, sitting, twisting or lifting something.
• Pain while coughing or sneezing.
• Weakness of the affected leg.